


Rough Patches

by stellarmeadow



Category: Hawaii Five-0 (2010)
Genre: Angst, Case Fic, Developing Relationship, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-04-14
Updated: 2011-04-19
Packaged: 2017-10-18 01:54:11
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 20,934
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/183678
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/stellarmeadow/pseuds/stellarmeadow
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Three cases that shine a light on particular issues inherent in any relationship between Steve McGarrett and Danny Williams.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Hit and Run

**Author's Note:**

> Huge thanks to celli, chelseafrew and corilannam for cheerleading, reading, feedback, support and general awesomeness. More notes on celli at the end of the last chapter...when they won't be a spoiler. ;-)

"Did we check on the guy with the--"

"Yes, Steven, we checked. Three times."

Steve stared at the information on the computer table like it was a particularly annoying perp Danny had forbidden him to shoot in the foot. "What about the guy with the hair and the--"

"Dead," Danny said. "Remember?"

"Right, the thing with the horse." Steve scrubbed his face with one hand. "We have to be missing something."

"I know you are less familiar with the down sides of police work," Danny said with patently fake patience, "but sometimes leads dry up. Sometimes we have no control over the case. And I realize that lack of control is a problem for you, especially where the Governor's friends are involved, but this time there is no one to pull an insane ninja fully-flaunting-the-Geneva-convention form of torture to drag information out of. They have robbed six rich people with security systems including cameras and there are no prints, no footage of them on the cameras and no witnesses. We have exhausted the few rather tenuous possible leads, and as much as it drives you crazy, and believe me, it doesn't exactly make me happy, sometimes you have to sit back and wait for a break."

Steve looked at him for a long moment. "What about the guy from the Kona robberies?"

"Christ, it's like talking to a rock!" Danny said, tapping away on his phone. "Still in jail, where he was the first three times you asked. We have no leads. No tenemos pistas." He frowned at the phone for a second before continuing. "Kakou he 'a'ole."

Steve blinked rapidly. "What?"

"It's Hawaiian for 'we have no leads.'"

More blinking. "You're learning Hawaiian?" Steve asked with the grin he always got when Danny did anything even remotely islandish.

"No, but Grace is learning it in school, and she put this thing on my phone so I could help her, so I looked it up hoping it might get through to you since clearly English was failing."

The truth didn't dim the grin at all. "We need to get you a better app. Maybe one with a pronunciation guide."

"I think you are missing the point of my impromptu Hawaiian, which _was_ \--"

"Just got a call," Chin said, rushing into the room. "Lady in Kahala heard some shouting and crashing in the house next door, the Waters' house. The neighborhood fits the profile for the other six robberies, so we took it, just in case."

"Kakou he 'a'ole no mas," Danny said as he followed Steve out the door.

Steve's driving was impressively fast, even for him, as if all the pent up frustration of not being able to act on the case was being unleashed on the Camaro and Danny's stomach. They arrived ahead of Chin and Kono and the HPD back up, sirens blaring all the way until they screeched to a halt in the driveway in front of the house. "Danny!" Steve yelled as they jumped out of the car, "Take the back!"

He didn't have time to obey before the shot rang out and they were both racing up the driveway and steps, Steve's legs flying faster than Danny could match. Steve kicked the door in without bothering to try the handle, disappearing seconds before Danny followed. He paused, listening for sounds, hearing Steve's voice uttering something low and urgent from a few rooms away. He followed that voice to a study at the back of the house, stopping short to stare in equal parts horror and disbelief at what he saw.

Steve knelt beside an older man, frantically trying to untape him from a chair, seemingly oblivious to the futility of the task. He knew better, or should have, even without the eerie similarities to another crime scene with a silver-haired man, tied instead of taped to a chair, a hole clear through his head behind unseeing eyes.

Any rational person would see the hole, see the blood still creeping slowly across the fabric of the white polo shirt, its little green lizard emblem now swimming in dark red, and know it was futile. But Steve was urging Danny to help him get the man on the ground as he cut furiously through the duct tape.

"Steve," Danny said quietly, moving forward to stand behind Steve, his knees touching Steve's back. "Babe," he said, his hand resting on Steve's shoulder. "Stop."

He sawed at the tape for about three more seconds, each of which seemed to tick off loudly in Danny's head before Steve stopped, sitting back on his feet, the knife falling out of his hand. He looked up at Danny, upside down, looking so lost that Danny's heart broke.

"Come on," Danny said, hearing sirens in the distance as he helped Steve to his feet. He led him out back to a terrace overlooking the beach and all but pushed him into a seat. "Stay here," Danny ordered, giving Steve's shoulder a squeeze and going back into the study.

Chin and Kono were there, staring at the scene with a horror similar to Danny's. HPD seemed largely unfazed, but Danny looked around and realized none of them were on the McGarrett call, whereas Chin and Kono had at least seen the photos. Pulling them aside, Danny lowered his voice. "We heard the shot as we got out of the car. The killer can't have gotten too far--have them start searching _now_."

"How's Steve?" Chin asked

"He was first in," he said. "He's out back now. Just...just keep everyone else away from there for a while, okay?"

They both nodded, and Danny went in search of the bathroom he'd seen on his way in. He picked up a plush towel and saturated it in cold water, finding another route to the terrace out back. "Here," he said, placing the towel in Steve's bloodstained hands. When Steve just stared at it as if he'd never seen a towel before, Danny blew out a hard breath and knelt down beside Steve, taking the towel. He cleaned the blood away as best he could before tossing the stained towel over the railing to get it out of sight.

That done, he left his hand on Steve's thigh, looking up at him. "You okay?" he said, knowing that the answer was an emphatic no, but not having any other way to phrase the question, at least not here, not yards away from that crime scene.

Steve blinked at him, then shook himself. "I'm fine," he said, his voice hoarse. "We need to start a search for the gunman before he leaves the--"

"Already on it," Danny said. "Chin and Kono are handling things inside. What do you say we get out of here?"

"Danny, it's our case, we can't just leave."

"We don't even know if it's our guy yet," Danny replied. "And yes, we can leave, okay? Because..." because you don't need to see that anymore, and because I don't need to see you seeing that anymore, and for a whole host of reasons that he couldn't just say. "Because I said so."

Steve snorted. "I'm not Grace."

"Then act your age and let's go."

He shook his head with a sigh, but when Danny stood, he pulled and Steve rose with him, letting him lead the way through the kitchen and around the other rooms to the front of the house. He didn't argue when Danny took the keys right out of his hand and got behind the wheel. Steve sat in the passenger seat, eyes forward, barely moving the entire ride, while Danny tried desperately to think of something to say.

What could he say, though? 'Hey, man, sorry that looked just like your father there'? Or maybe 'No, really, your dad's scene wasn't that bad'? Only that was a lie, and Steve had seen the photos, Danny knew he had, and there was no way of telling him that lie. He knew Steve was, somewhere in his head, superimposing every bit of the McGarrett crime scene over the one they'd just left. Only now he had the smell of powder and the feel of sticky, warm blood all over his hands to imagine with it.

 _Fuck_. Danny exhaled slowly, casting another covert glance at Steve, but he still hadn't moved.

"I'm not going to break, Danny," Steve said, but his voice, a hollow attempt at his normal annoyed humor tone, said otherwise. "I'll be fine."

Right, you keep telling yourself that. "Okay. Just...okay."

They pulled up to Steve's house, and he opened the door before Danny had even fully come to a stop. "Thanks for dropping me off," he said, getting out. "I'll see you tomorrow."

He'd closed the door and was halfway to the house before Danny's brain could catch up. Never mind that Danny had barely been to his apartment for the last two weeks, and every time he had been, it was for a maximum of five minutes to pick up clothes, and Steve was always there with him. Never mind that he'd spent the last two weeks in Steve's bed. Apparently none of that mattered.

He had been summarily dismissed.

And he got it, he really did. Steve did not suffer in company. He preferred his deepest pain in dark solitude and even if he'd started to open up to Danny in random bursts, there was no way he was going to easily invite him into this one. Not until he was good and ready, if and when that moment ever came.

With one last, worried look at Steve's retreating back as he went inside, Danny swore before he turned the car around and peeled out of the drive. He made it to his apartment at Steve-speed, only realizing once he was inside that he had nothing to eat. A call to the shitty, but fast, pizza place down the road had pizza and beer there quickly. A call to Chin while he waited had given him the bad news that the shooter had eluded HPD, making the beer even more attractive.

By the end of the fourth slice and sixth bottle, he was almost glad he knew better than to drive like this. Because he wanted to go over there and force Steve to deal with...something. Anything. To at least know he wasn't sitting there suffering alone, if nothing else. But he knew it wouldn't be welcome, and he knew better than to force Steve McGarrett into anything he wasn't ready for.

He crawled into bed before the news even came on, the thin, lumpy pull out mattress far worse than he'd remembered. Sleep took some time, but he finally managed to pass out, waking sometime in the middle of the night to a sound, familiar and yet slightly out of place. He sniffed, getting the same vibe from the scent, and opened his eyes to find Steve leaning against the wall near the bed, arms folded closely over his chest, watching Danny without moving. He would swear the bastard wasn't even blinking.

"You realize," Danny said, as his heart slowed back down to a non-sprint rate, "you just shaved five years off my life and almost got shot." Not entirely true--he had recognized the sound and smell as Steve before he'd even fully woken up, had known he was safe, hadn't even reached for his gun, but seeing him looming had still nearly given Danny a heart attack.

Steve sniffed, uncrossed his arms, flexing his fingers like he wasn't quite sure what to do with his hands, then just sort of launched himself at Danny's bed, landing half beside him, half on top of him, his lips finding Danny's with a singular focus that far greater humans than Danny would be unable to resist. He knew he should say something, but all the blood seemed to have evacuated his brain.

Hands finally finding a purpose, Steve was doing his best to keep Danny's blood below the belt. He yanked off the boxers Danny had been sleeping in and went to work on Danny's dick, using every bit of his newfound knowledge of Danny's body , playing him with his hands, his lips, his--oh, _God_ , his teeth scraping Danny's nipple, making Danny's fingers dig into Steve's scalp.

 _Okay, so maybe blood to the brain was overrated_. The thought slipping away as he tried to push up into Steve's hand and pull Steve's mouth closer to his chest all in one motion. Steve wasn't having any of it, one arm across Danny's hip somehow managing to keep him from moving.

He stopped abruptly, sitting up, Danny getting out a "What the _fuck_ \--" before he realized Steve was yanking his shirt over his head and fumbling with his pants. Danny watched, focusing on breathing because _Jesus_ , he had to have some control to keep himself from grabbing Steve and wrangling him back on the bed before the clothes were off.

Then Steve was back on top of him, his hand working Danny's dick again just long enough to make him whimper when Steve stopped once more. The whimper turned to a moan as Steve rolled a condom on Danny's cock and moved over him, pushing down as fast as he could manage --probably faster than he should have, some part of Danny's brain recognized--until Danny was balls deep, Steve sitting across him like some sort of completely depraved statue, muscles taut, head thrown back, that neck making Danny wish he had the energy to rise up enough to attack it with his mouth.

Steve began to move, his pace relentless, chasing out God only knew what, and whatever it was Danny couldn't manage to care for the moment as long as he kept, _fuck_ , kept pushing down like that, with that little maneuver of his hips that he only hoped to God they did _not_ teach at SEAL school, because Jesus _fuck_ , they wouldn't have to take weapons in for a coup, they could just fuck them all into submission with that.

There was no holding back like this. Danny was lost, pushing up, meeting Steve thrust for thrust so hard he thought his back was going to ache in the morning. He didn't care, wouldn't have cared if he was going to be unable to move, because this, this was going to be so fucking worth it, worth going back to the cane, worth whatever it cost, he could feel it. He gripped Steve's forearms, pushing up with more strength than he knew he had and froze as everything whited the fuck out, nothing else existing but this feeling bursting out of every pore.

He could feel himself breathing, finally, feel Steve breathing in time with him, collapsed over his chest, their skin rubbing easily together. Danny managed to lift his hands, which was more coordination or strength than he would have expected himself to have, and run them up and down Steve's biceps a few times, swallowing against the lump in his throat as Steve buried his head further into the junction of Danny's neck and shoulder.

As good as that was, he knew they had to talk about whatever had brought it on, and _not_ , he told his lizard brain emphatically, so they could recreate it. Or at least not with whatever had driven it tonight. Would talk, as soon as he could find his vocal chords, which seemed to have been ripped out. Maybe he'd just take a quick nap, and then he would get Steve up and make him talk. Right. One quick nap.

He woke to Grace's ringtone, light streaming in the windows, and no one else in the bed. He grabbed the phone, saying hi to her as he looked around the room, but his eyes told him what he'd already sensed--Steve was nowhere to be found.

He talked with Grace for a few minutes before she had to go to school, then hung up, putting his phone back on the table and looking around. The sheets, the smells, the tiny aches in his muscles and the spent condom in the trash can by the bed all told him the same thing--he hadn't dreamed Steve's visit. And Steve had at least cleaned up before he left.

But he'd left.

"Fuck." Danny said, flopping back onto the bed, eyes closed. His phone rang, the ringtone for the Five-0 HQ exchange, and his eyes opened as he grabbed for the cell. "Hello?"

"Danny," Kono said, "we've got a lead on the shooter from yesterday from the Waters' house. Boss is already there, said to call you before we left."

A lead, great. And Steve was having Kono call him. Wonderful. "Text me the address. I'll be right there."

He hung up, throwing the phone on the bed with more force than necessary, wincing as it bounced off onto the floor. No time to worry about last night right now--he'd have to corner Steve later. He dressed as fast as he could, grabbed the coffee that had brewed while he dressed, and his phone--which was thankfully not broken--and ran out to the car.

The address Kono texted turned out to be an urgent care clinic surrounded by the usual cruisers, yellow tape and colorful bystanders eager for any cocktail stories they could get out of an active crime scene. He saw Kono by her car, talking with an HPD officer, and Chin over by the front door, but there was no sign of Steve.

"Where's Steve?" he asked when he reached Kono.

"Inside. Our guy came in here last night as the doctor was locking up and pulled a gun on him. Made him stitch up a nasty head wound that could've been caused by the golf club we found at the scene in Kahala yesterday."

"The club couldn't have been used on the vic?"

Kono shook her head. "Wrong blood type for Waters."

"Okay, thanks."

He nodded to Chin as he walked into the clinic, following the trail of police to an exam room where Steve stood over a doctor Danny assumed was the one who'd stitched up their killer. Judging by the ice pack he had on the back of his head, Danny also assumed he'd been knocked unconscious by the killer and that's why they hadn't heard about this until this morning.

"Are you sure you can't remember anything else?" Steve was barely managing to keep his full 'I know you killed six puppies' tone out of his voice.

"I told you, Commander, I barely remember stitching the guy up. Loss of memory is common with--"

"Blows to the head, I know, you said. But any little detail that comes back to you could be extremely helpful. If you'd just think one more time....."

Danny stepped up beside Steve. "Why don't you think for a while, Dr." Danny checked the man's name tag, "Wong, and if you think of anything else, even if it seems insignificant, you can give us a call." He pulled a card out of his pocket and handed it to the doctor.

"I will. I promise, I'll do my best. It's entirely possible more memories will come back once the swelling's gone down, I just can't recall anything else right now."

"I know, thank you for your time." He could feel Steve barely holding back beside him, but he wasn't saying anything, letting Danny take over. "Please, don't hesitate to call as soon as you remember anything."

The doctor assured him once more he would, and Danny grabbed Steve's bicep and pulled him out of the room and the building, not letting go until he had him off to the side near the corner, away from prying ears. "Okay," Danny said.

"Okay?"

"I know you want to read me the riot act for interrupting your interrogation," he said. "Go ahead."

Steve blinked. "I...uh...no. Not really."

"Really? Danny poked him. "Well, I'm not hallucinating you--and I wasn't last night, either, and don't think you're getting out of that discussion later, my friend--so you must have gotten yourself hit on the head as well."

"No, I--you were right. He wasn't going to remember any easier with me pressing him. I just...."

"Couldn't help yourself? I know. It's why I have a job. So why don't you tell me where this lead came from."

Steve rubbed at the back of his neck, wincing a little, and Danny wondered if he had slept at all. "They rushed forensics because of this case being...well, this case, and found that a golf club had blood on it that didn't match the victim's. They put out a BOLO for anyone who might have a wound that could have been caused by a golf club, thinking maybe the victim surprised the killer and got in a good swing before the killer got the upper hand. When Dr. Wong woke up this morning and called the police, they called us."

"Why did the killer leave him alive?"

"The doctor said he remembers the gun against his temple, and a trigger being pulled, but that's all he remembers, so either it jammed or he was out of bullets or something,"

"Sounds like our guy is having a sudden run of bad luck," Danny said. "Maybe we'll catch him now."

Chin called them over to the door to see where the killer had broken in. "No finger prints," he said, but there are boot prints that don't belong to the doctor and he said the cleaning crew had already been in when he was attacked."

"Good," Steve said. "Get whatever you can--I'm going back to HQ. As soon as you're done, bring it all back and we'll go through it and see if we can find anything that helps."

Danny watched him go, waiting until he had made it to his truck before turning back to Chin. "Where was he when he got the call this morning?" he asked.

Chin raised an eyebrow, the only outward sign he thought the question was odd. "In his office. Doing paperwork, he said," Chin added in a tone that said he didn't quite believe it either.

"What time?"

After a quick glance at his watch, Chin thought for a few seconds. "Had to have been around five."

Danny nodded. "Thanks," he said, clapping Chin on the shoulder and ignoring his curious look, just turning and walking away. He got into the car and headed for HQ, stopping to get breakfast for both himself and Steve on the way. He found Steve sitting at his desk, looking like he was, in fact, doing paperwork. "What've you got there?" Danny asked, dropping Steve's breakfast on the desk beside the papers.

"I'm going back over the other files on the case to see if we've missed anything at the other scenes that might help now that we know more." He looked at the bag Danny had put on his desk, then at Danny.  "What's this?"

"Breakfast," Danny said. "It is not a bribe," he said, assuming Steve's look of apprehension was more about Danny plying him with food than about the actual food itself. "I promise not to talk about anything even remotely personal until you've eaten." Because he had a feeling Steve hadn't bothered to eat anything since lunch the day before, and if postponing their talk a little longer made him eat, fine.

They ate, talking about the case, until Danny noticed Steve lingering over the last three bites a little too long. "Finish that," he ordered, "or I'm going to start talking anyway."

Steve swallowed it in one bite, taking a long drink of coffee and sitting back in his seat, looking as relaxed as someone about to have a colonoscopy. "Okay, I'm done. What did you want to talk about?"

"Oh, I don't know, Grace's upcoming recorder performance at school? Or the fact that Kono is coming up on her first six months and needs a psych eval? Or maybe about the tire on my car that still isn't working right since you tried to drive it off a cliff? Or hey, I know! Maybe we should talk about how you appeared out of _nowhere_ last night and fucked me through the mattress and then _disappeared_ just as quietly?"

One eyebrow shot up. "You've never complained about that before."

"About the sex? No. I have _no_ problem with the sex. I am _all_ for the sex. The blowing in like a tornado and back out again after blowing me off earlier, _that_ I have an issue with."

"So you don't want me to blow you anymore?"

"Okay, stop. Just stop it right now, because I see what you are doing, and it is _not_ going to work. I need you to understand that. If _this_ ," he pointed his finger back and forth between the two of them a few times, "is going to work, then _that_ is not going to happen."

Steve sighed. "It's not a big deal. I needed to get some work done, so I left. I'm sorry, I didn't realize you were such a girl. I'll stay next time."

"No. You do not get to pull that and then act like nothing weird happened. Like it was no big deal."

"What do you want me to say, Danny?"

"How about we start with the truth?"

Steve's nostrils flared. "Danny, I--"

Chin knocked and came in, glancing between the two of them before he spoke. "Sorry to interrupt, but we're ready out here with the evidence."

"Be right there," Danny said, because however much they needed to have this conversation, they needed to catch a killer more. Chin left, and Steve jumped up, looking relieved. Danny stood just in time to catch Steve by the arm as he tried to brush past. "This is not over," he said, his gaze holding Steve's for a long moment until Steve swallowed and nodded, and Danny let go.

He followed Steve out into the main room, where Chin and Kono had pictures from both the Kahala scene and the clinic up on the computer table. Danny glanced at Steve, but his face was a blank mask with no sign of reaction to the Kahala scene.

"HPD found a set of boot prints at the scene in Kahala," Chin said, flicking a picture from the table up to one of the overhead screens. "The boot print we found at the clinic," he said, flicking another picture up beside the first, "is a match. It was definitely our guy."

"I don't suppose the boots have his name engraved on the bottom?" Danny asked.

"No, but Dr. Wong did remember that the guy was blond, probably 6 feet tall, maybe a little taller, with a southern accent," Kono said, "so that lets out a lot of suspects."

"Wait." Steve was frowning at Danny. "Wasn't there a guy in our initial suspect list from Alabama?"

Danny nodded, already mentally running down the list of suspects in his head. "Thompson? Townshend? No, wait." He ran to his office and grabbed a file, flipping through the pages as he hurried back to the computer. "Towson," he said. "Peter Towson. The computer turned up his MO as a possible, but he was in Draper Correctional in Alabama, so we dismissed him." Danny flipped another page. "However..." he said, and held up a picture of the blond prisoner. "Height's listed as six foot one," he added.

"Chin," Steve said, but Chin was already tapping away at the screen.

"The main search still shows him as incarcerated, but..." Chin tapped for a few seconds more, "here's the lists of releases for the last month." He pulled it up and did a search for Towson, finding him on the sixth page. "Peter Towson, released three and a half weeks ago."

"Why was that not in the system?" Steve demanded.

"It happens," Danny said. "Overworked, understaffed, it can take a month or two for the status to be updated sometimes, depending on the state."

Steve glared at the list of releases as if it had shot at him. "Find out everything there is to know about this guy," he ground out. "Now."

Danny's cell rang, an unfamiliar number, and he picked up with his full name and title. "Detective, it's Dr. Wong."

"Did you remember something, doctor?" he asked, getting the attention of the rest of his team.

"I did. I don't know if it helps, but I think I remember him making a phone call right after he hit me. I was still dazed, I must have passed out right after, but I remember the sound of my office phone being picked up and dialed, and a voice. I'm sorry, I don't remember anything that was actually said."

"Thank you, that could be a big help if we can trace the call. Did you remember anything else?"

"No, I'm sorry."

"It's okay. Give me a call if you do."

He hung up and told the others. "Can you trace the call from here?" he asked.

Kono's fingers were already flying across the screen while Chin continued pulling up info on Towson. "Okay, there was a call made around the right time to Ailana Kalama at Makiki Station on Wilder."

"Wait," Chin said, scrolling through something on the screen. "In the log of letters and calls to Towson at Draper, there are dozens from an Ailana Kalama."

"Old girlfriend?" Danny asked.

Chin was still scanning. "Doesn't look like it. She was writing to several inmates there a few years ago, but about eighteen months ago, it looks like the rest of them disappeared and it was just Towson."

"So she was a prison pen pal who turned into more for this guy?" Steve said.

"What is wrong with those women, anyway?" Danny asked, turning to Kono. "Please, can you explain to me why women would write to convicted criminals looking for love?"

"Don't look at me, brah, my relationship with them _ends_ when I throw their asses in jail."

"Okay," Steve said, "if he was calling her from the clinic, then maybe he's holed up at her apartment. Let's go."

They met HPD around the corner from Kalama's apartment, moving silently until they were gathered outside her door. At Steve's knock and his accompanying "5-0! Open the door!" there was a scuffle inside, but no answer. Danny didn't even blink when Steve kicked in the door, he just followed close behind to watch his partner's back.

Towson was at the window with one foot out onto the fire escape. He hesitated for a second at Steve's command to freeze, then started to move out the window again. Steve rushed over to grab him and yank him back in the apartment, throwing him on the floor and training his gun on him once more. Danny was no gentler as he shoved Towson onto his stomach, pulling his arms behind his back and cuffing them.

Once Towson was cuffed and on his feet, Steve glared at him one more time, and Danny wondered if he was wishing he'd had a chance to shoot him. "Book 'em, Danno," was all he said, though, before turning on his heel and walking away.

By the time Danny was done turning Towson over to the cops and having them put out a BOLO for Kalama, Steve was gone. Danny found Kono, who told him she saw Steve leaving in one of the cruisers. He wondered if Steve was just anxious to get away from this particular criminal or if he was anxious to avoid Danny.

In the end, the reason didn't matter. They needed to talk. Danny was the next to leave, driving back to HQ only to see if Steve was there. He didn't dare call, as he had a suspicion that, given any warning, Steve would find a way to disappear or perhaps track down a nice little terrorist cell or something to avoid talking.

He wasn't at HQ, either, though there was a message from HPD that the girlfriend was in custody. Steve, Danny guessed, had gone home. He knew better than to think he was getting out of this conversation again, but he'd certainly be only too happy to make sure it was on his home turf. Danny stopped to get pizza and beer before heading out to Steve's. He juggled the pizza box with a six pack on top to turn the door knob and get the door open, not bothering to knock.

Steve wasn't in the front, or the kitchen, so Danny left the pizza and beer on the kitchen table and went out back. Steve was sitting by the water, staring out at the gentle waves lapping at the sand, a Longboard dangling from his fingertips. Danny took the other chair without a word, looking out at the horizon himself.

"Towson nice and comfy?" Steve asked after a minute.

"Locked up nice and tight in a cell, a situation I suspect he will have to become accustomed to once more. HPD found Kalama, too."

"Good," Steve said, taking a drink.

Danny took a deep breath. "We need to talk."

"Okay. Just...not on an empty stomach."

He recognized a stalling tactic when he saw one, but they had to eat, which was why he'd brought food in the first place. "Pizza's in the kitchen. Come on."

He stood, hearing Steve scrambling up to follow him back into the house. Steve didn't comment on the fact that the pizza was half ham and pineapple, but his smile was comment enough for Danny. They ate in silence at the kitchen table, finishing off the whole pie before Danny pushed the mess aside. "In here, or outside?"

"Outside," Steve said, as Danny expected. The darkness would help, and Steve always seemed to draw some kind of strength from the ocean. Steve picked up the rest of the beer and tucked it under his arm, leading Danny back out to the chairs on the beach.

When they were settled, Danny waited for Steve to start. "Last night," Steve said after a minute, "I just needed to be somewhere else." The words were halting, like he was figuring it out as he went along. "Somewhere good. Not where my head was at the time." He turned his head to look at Danny. "I didn't know what else to do."

"It didn't occur to you to maybe _talk_? Words are not the enemy, Steven."

"I know, I just...I didn't even know what to say. I still don't." Steve's hands were moving around in fitful motions, fingers flexed, as if even they couldn't decide what to do. "I just needed to be...not in here," he said at last, tapping the side of his head with his index finger.

"And your solution was to fuck my brains out and leave?"

Steve sighed. "I'm sorry," he said, managing to sound regretful without sounding entirely sincere.

"I'm not after an apology. I'm after that not happening again."

And really, he always forgot how still Steve could get until he saw him freeze like a store window mannequin. "You want us to stop sleeping together," he said, his voice suddenly devoid of any emotion.

"I want--what? No, that is _not_ what I want. Seriously, were you dropped on your head from all those helicopters? Sex is _fine_. Sex is _great_. I am all for sex," Danny said. "What I am _not_ for is you showing up in the middle of the night and using me like that, like I could've been anybody, and then running away like you're _ashamed_ of it."

Steve's eyes widened as he stared at Danny for a moment before he found his voice. "You--that...that is so far from what was going on that I don't even know where to start."

"So tell me what _was_ going on, then."

"It couldn't have been just anybody, Danny," Steve said, the words tumbling out in a rush. "It had to be you, nobody else. Nobody. Only you."

Danny sorted through that for the meaning. Was he supposed to take that to mean that he made Steve happy? Or better, or safe, or made him forget things? Or maybe he was just the God of Sex and could obliterate things from people's minds through mere intercourse. "Why?" he asked, when he couldn't fathom the meaning on his own.

Steve's laugh was harsh and unsettling. "I wish I knew. All I can tell you is that I was sitting here alone and I couldn't stand it. Next thing I knew I was in my truck on the way to your apartment, but when I made it I didn't know what the hell I was doing there. I'd been standing there for twenty minutes when you woke up, and I just...you looked so much better than everything going on in my head."

And really, what was he supposed to do with that? He knew he would never have gotten that much if Steve hadn't been up for about two days straight, half-drunk, and completely fucked over emotionally at the moment. But Steve also couldn't take it back now, and wasn't really looking like he wanted to. He was looking more like he wanted Danny to make it make sense. Or make it better. Or...fuck, who the hell knew?

"If that was the case," Danny said slowly, "why did you leave?"

"I told you, I had work to do." The brutal honesty was gone from his voice, his normal careful tone back in place once more.

"Okay," Danny said, picking up his beer and getting up. "If you're gonna lie to me, then we're done talking."

He'd gotten three steps towards the lanai when Steve grated out, "Wait!"

Danny paused for a long moment before turning and moving slowly back to the chairs. "I get that you're not one for heart-to-hearts about your feelings--it's not exactly my idea of a good time, either," he said, standing over Steve, who looked somewhere between terrified and pissed off. "But there's a difference between running down Cosmo relationship checklists and refusing to pick at the festering wound that's threatening to kill you."

"You read Cosmo checklists?"

"What? No, I do _not_ read Cosmo period, it was just this thing Rachel used to-- _stop_ changing the subject!" Danny ran his free hand through his hair. "I can't decide if you're trying to deflect my questions or run me off completely."

"I don't want you to go," Steve said quietly, his eyes intense in the bright light from the moon.

Danny sat back down, leaning forward, elbows on his knees. "Then talk to me."

"What do you want me to say?"

"It's not about what I want to hear," Danny insisted. "It's about whatever messed up issue is going on  up there," he pointed at Steve's head, "that's likely to get us both killed if you don't figure it out."

"None of this is going to mess with work."

The really interesting thing is that not only did Steve believe that, ninety-nine percent of the time he was probably right. But this one...Danny wasn't so sure. "Why nobody but me?" Danny asked.

"I don't know," Steve said. "Because you're...you."

"Oh, well, that clears everything up," Danny said sarcastically.

"Look, you want me to talk, you're going to have to deal with the fact that I don't know what I'm saying."

Danny laughed. "Nothing new there."

Steve closed his eyes, sighing loudly. "Why does anyone choose anyone else?" he asked, opening his eyes to look at Danny once more. "Why did you choose Rachel?"

"Because...." He thought for a moment, then gave a half smile. "Because she was Rachel."

"Exactly. Some things you can't explain."

Which led to a far more interesting idea--that Steve was comparing the two of them to Danny's marriage. He wasn't sure if that was intentional, or just the first example Steve came up with and if he even realized what he'd done. Who the hell knew when it came to Steve?

"So," Danny said, clearing his throat, "no more hit and runs?"

"Do I get a pass if we catch a case?" Steve asked, smiling a little, his face looking five years younger than it had before.

He looked so relieved, Danny didn't have the heart to push anything more tonight, so he just tilted his head, pretending to consider the idea. "I'll think about it."

"You let me know."

"Will do. In the meantime," he said, standing up, "how about a hit without the run?"

Steve's smile turned into a full-blown goofy grin, and Danny's heart absolutely did _not_ flip over at the sight. "I could be up for that."

***


	2. Blindsided

Chin was waiting for them at Steve's office the next morning. "Towson confessed," he said. "To the other robberies and to the Waters murder. Seems as though he had a visitor or something last night who advised him that maybe it would be good for his soul. Or possibly his continued existence."

"Good," Steve said, looking completely innocent, for all that Danny knew he had disappeared for two hours in the middle of the night and suspected even before this that he'd gone to the jail. But since he'd woken Danny up specifically to tell him he had to go do something but would be back, Danny let it go. Progress was progress, even in baby steps.

Chin's look said he knew almost as well as Danny that Steve had something to do with that, but he wasn't asking either. "So, we wrapped that one up just in time," Chin said. "Because we have a serial killer."

"It would be nice if they scheduled these things a little better," Danny joked as they all joined Kono in the bullpen. "Don't they know it's Friday? I mean, really, there goes our weekend."

Kono was already lining up information on the computer table. "Three murders in the last ten days," she said as they circled around the table. She put the info on each murder up on a different overhead screen. "All three victims are men from the mainland, all here on vacation, all found in empty fields."

"The Governor was very clear about not wanting a fourth tourist dead," Chin added.

"Of course. Wouldn't do much to help tourism," Danny said, looking at the three men on screen. "Looks like all their throats were slashed."

Nodding, Kono blew up the autopsy photo for the first victim. "Lots of bruising and cuts before the final kill," she said, "along with restraint marks around the wrists and ankles. M.E. thinks they were probably tortured for at least a day or two before they were killed."

"What do they have in common?" Steve asked.

"Not a lot at first glance," Kono said, fingers flying across the virtual keyboard, "but I did a little quick digging into their credit card records on the island, and for all three, the Oceans club is the last charge on their card."

"Can we get security footage from the club?" Steve said.

"Uploading now," Chin said, tapping away on the other side of the computer table. "HPD isolated the sections of tape showing our first two vics, but Jameson called us in before they had pulled footage for the latest vic. I'm pulling up the footage on Nick Butler, the first vic, now. Age 42, from Iowa."

The security footage appeared on screen one, and Danny moved closer to get a better look. "There's our guy," he said, pointing at the first victim talking to a beautiful local woman. A moment later they moved out to the floor together, and started dancing. Or at least some form of what Danny assumed passed for dancing. "What is he doing?" Danny asked.

"I think it's some attempt at the robot," Kono said, squinting.

Danny shook his head. "Maybe he was killed for insulting dancing as an art form."

"Did HPD identify the woman he's dancing with?" Steve asked.

"They talked with her," Chin replied, "but she didn't know Butler before that night. Said he was nice enough, for a haole." He gave Danny a slightly apologetic look, but Danny just shrugged it off. "He was alone and looking for company--in the polite sense, nothing seedy, she said. He bought her a few drinks, they danced for a while, and he left."

"He's certainly doing a lot of flirting and touching for someone who doesn't want anything more than dancing."

"She said he seemed to be like that with pretty much everyone around," Chin replied, pulling up a separate file on the computer table. "He was very 'touchy-feely' with everyone--her words."

Danny watched for a minute more, but he didn't get the sense the girl was hustling the guy. It just didn't look like a hustle gone bad, and one glance at Steve's face told him Steve was thinking the same. Still. "Did this girl show up at the other scenes?"

Chin shook his head. "She also has alibis over the two days he was held captive before he was killed. HPD didn't think she had any involvement."

"What about the second vic?" Danny asked.

"Tim Howe, 34, from Grand Rapids, Michigan. This was four nights later," Chin said, pulling up that security footage. They watched as the second victim walked in and looked around before settling at the bar next to a pretty Hawaiian woman. Within minutes they were out on the floor, and spent the rest of their time together. Chin fast-forwarded through the footage until Howe kissed the girl on the cheek and left the bar alone.

"Okay," Steve said slowly, "another touchy-feely person looking for company?"

"Seemed like it--the girl had a very similar story when HPD questioned her. At that point they were wondering about a hustle themselves, maybe a ring, but then early this morning this guy turned up." He pulled up the third victim again. "Charles Slater, 38, from Yorba Linda, California."

"What was different about him that made him change their minds?"

"Unlike the other two he had all his stuff still on him--wallet, ID, money." Chin shook his head. "What kind of hustle would that be?"

Steve shrugged. "Maybe it went bad?"

"Not likely," Chin replied. "He was still tortured, throat slit, and he was dumped in an empty field, just like the others."

"So either the killer is getting sloppy...." Steve said.

"Or he's getting bolder and wants us to know what he's doing," Danny said.

Chin pulled up video footage. "Slater's credit card activity says he settled up his bar tab at 11:47 Tuesday night. So if we fast forward from about seven that night...there."

He slowed the fast forward a little as they saw Slater walk into the club. Just like the other two, he found a pretty local woman at the bar and struck up a conversation. They drank, they danced, and he settled up the bill, and left, but this time with the girl.

"That's different," Kono said.

"Chin," Steve said, "is there outside footage?"

He nodded, already pulling the video up and fast forwarding to the right time. They saw Slater and the girl leave the bar and get into a car, the girl behind the wheel. "Did HPD talk to her?" Steve asked.

"They didn't know about her. We just got the security footage, so they wouldn't have had time to see this."

"Kono," Steve said, watching the car pull off, "run her license plate."

She did, coming up with a name and a driver's license image in under a minute. "Kelly Simpson," she said, frowning at the screen. "You're going to have a hard time talking to her, though," she added, looking up at them. "She's in ICU at Queen's. Coma."

"What happened?" Danny asked.

"She was found in her car on the side of the road on Wednesday morning. Beaten and left for dead, according to the report."

Danny frowned. "So whoever our killer is wasn't too happy with her for leaving with the haole." At the looks from the others, Danny laughed. "What? It's okay if _I_ say it. Don't you know how that works?"

"I think you're on to something," Steve said. "It looks like he's targeting obvious mainlanders who hit on locals."

"And apparently not too happy with the locals who go too far."

Steve stared at the crime scene photos Kono pulled up of Kelly Simpson's car. "Any leads from her scene?"

"They got one partial print that wasn't hers, but it's not a match to Slater, either. Nothing's turned up in any databases so far."

"Keep trying," he said. "And check the footage from the three nights and see if maybe our killer shows up on all three."

"If that doesn't give us anything," Danny said slowly, "we could do something a little more proactive."

Steve turned to look at him. "Like what?"

"Kono and I could create our own version of his favorite entertainment."

Steve chewed on his lower lip for a few seconds. "It's not a bad idea," he said finally. "But I think I should go under with Kono."

And really, Danny felt vindicated when both Chin and Kono laughed with him. "Are you out of your mind?" Danny asked.

"What?" Steve shrugged, eyes landing on the computer table once more. "I get called haole."

"Oh, please." Danny moved closer so Steve couldn't easily avoid looking at him. "I'm sure the occasional 'h' word tossed in your general direction must be very unsettling for a born and bred Hawaiian like yourself. However, let me assure you, there is no way in hell someone really looking for people who stand out like a sore thumb in Hawaii is going to even notice you exist."

Steve gave Chin and imploring look, but he shook his head. "Sorry, brah, at worst even I'd have guessed you were half-native."

"And as much as I'd love to watch you attempt to dance," Kono said, "I'm with them."

"I still think it's the stronger play," Steve said, folding his arms over his chest.

Danny blew out a long, frustrated breath. "Steven," he said carefully, "look at the three dead men. Do you see what they have in common?"

Steve looked at the pictures. "They're all dead."

"They're all--I swear to you, one of these days...." Danny ran a hand through his hair. "In case it escaped your notice, they're all blond. And sunburned."

"So? I can get a little pink."

"They're wearing ties, Steven."

"I own a tie."

Danny tapped his fingers on the computer table, counting to ten in his head. "Kono, be at the club, by the bar, at 9. _I_ will be there at 9:15. These two," he said, wagging his finger back and forth between Steven and Chin, "can sit across the room and see how good we are at our jobs."

He met Steve's glare, daring him to say a word, but Steve said nothing. "Okay," Danny said. "I need a new tie for tonight. And _you_ ," he said, pointing at Steve, "are going to go help me pick one out."

"You have a whole rack of ties," Steve said, taking two steps back. "Weren't you just making the point that your ties are the whole reason you should be the one going under cover?"

"Yes, but I need a special one. Let's go." Danny didn't give him time to argue. He grabbed Steve's arm and dragged him toward the door.

They were in the car and out onto the freeway, Danny having refused to let Steve drive, before Danny finally spoke. "What is the matter with you?" he demanded, after dismissing several other possible opening lines.

"I don't know what you're talking about," Steve said, staring out the side window.

Danny pursed his lips, breathing in and out carefully. "This is one of those SEAL things, isn't it?" he asked, his voice low as he divided his attention between Steve and the road. "You really think there's absolutely nothing wrong with trying to pull me out of an undercover operation that I couldn't be more suited for if it was scripted. You have _honestly_ convinced yourself that it's for my own good."

"It _is_ for your own good," Steve said, eyes on Danny now, turning on the injured, kicked puppy face that never failed to test Danny's resolve--and for fuck's sake, did they have some sort of secret expression class in SEAL school? Because Danny's looked, and there was no mention of it in the whole list of all the things SEALs had to go through, but he wouldn't put it past them to make it some sort of secret class.

"How, _exactly_ , is it for my own good not to do my job? Please, Steven, tell me, how is you basically telling the rest of our team that I am _incapable_ of taking care of myself in a controlled, relatively safe undercover operation for my own good? Is it for my own _good_ that you implied that _Kono_ is better at this than I am? Because I missed the part where _any_ of that is a _compliment_!"

"I never said you weren't good at your job." The kicked puppy face was up to almost mortally wounded, but Danny held onto his anger. "You're incredible at your job. I would have thought that the fact that I chose you for my partner would have at least implied that."

Danny gripped the steering wheel, making a half-formed growl. "If I'm so fucking fabulous at my job, then what the hell was that back there? Why were you trying to bench me?"

"I wasn't trying to bench you!"

"No? What else do you call trying to take someone out of play and shove them on a bench? Last I checked, you Neanderthal football player, even in your sport, that was still called benching!"

Steve shifted, turning his body toward Danny a little. "I wasn't taking you out of play," he said, palms open, his hands out, "I was just putting you--"

"Further back? As in on the back _benches_?" Danny pulled up to a red light and gave Steve his full attention. " _Nothing_ between us is going to work, personally _or_ professionally, if you try to protect me!"

"You're the guy's type!" Steve burst out. "You are, as you pointed out, _exactly_ his type, Danny, right down to the ties that any _sane_ person would know better than to strangle themselves with on a tropical island. So I thought _maybe_ at least _one_ night of recon, one night where we could keep an eye out with less chance of him going active, maybe we could get lucky without anybody getting tied to a chair and tortured. So sue me!"

A horn blared behind them, interrupting Danny's stunned silence. He looked up to see the light had turned green. He pulled away from the light, watching the road for a long moment. "Okay," he said. "I get it." And he did, he got far more than Steve was saying. He got that the whole scene at the Waters house still had Steve shook up, and that Steve didn't know what to do with any of it. He didn't need Freud to explain why, but he'd have loved a few pointers from Freud on how to fix it.

Even if he knew how, though, this was far more conversation than they could have with a job to do tonight. "Look, I'm not crazy about putting myself or Kono out there," he said. "But this guy is speeding up, and if we don't provide him with a good target, someone who is _exactly_ his type, then he's going to go after someone who _cannot_ look after themselves, and someone is going to lose a brother, or a son, or a father."

It was dirty and manipulative, and he knew it, but he also knew it was the best way to focus Steve. At the mention of losing a father, Steve straightened up, kicked puppy face giving way to mission face. "Okay," he said, his spine seeming to grow an inch as he sat up even straighter.

Danny pulled into the parking lot at Neiman Marcus. "I think," he said slowly, busying himself with parking the car, "that maybe Kono and I both should wear tracers. I know the cars are Lojacked, but just in case...."

He took the keys out of the ignition and glanced at Steve, who was wearing a hint of a smile now. "If it'll make you feel better."

They both knew it wasn't Danny that move was intended to placate, but Danny would let him have that one. "Now that that's decided," Danny said, opening the car door, "you are going to buy me a very nice, very expensive tie."

"Why would I do that?" Steve asked over the hood of the car.

"Because I need something flashy. And because apologies, _Steven_ ," he said pointedly, "are _never_ cheap."

Steve swallowed carefully. "Why don't I buy you a nice tie?"

"Now you're talking."

***

Danny checked himself in the visor mirror of the rental car one more time, straightening his new tie and shoving all the thoughts of what Steve had done with the tie Danny had been wearing earlier that afternoon out of his head. He glanced at his watch, seeing that it had finally ticked over to 9:15, and got out of the car.

The music was loud inside the club, his ears taking a moment to adjust as he looked around. He spotted Steve and Chin sitting at a bar directly across the room, and knew Steve had spotted him instantly by the laser stare that Danny swore he could feel even when he turned away.

Kono was leaning on the bar closer to the entrance, nursing a drink and looking out at the crowd as if she was a little bored. If she was hoping it would keep her admirers to a minimum, it wasn't working well, but she was quite good in fending the two off she'd had just in the time Danny had been standing there. He went over to the opening between her and a couple who were far too engrossed in each other to notice them and ordered a drink. "Can I get you another?" Danny asked, nodding at Kono's nearly empty drink.

"Sure, thanks."

He ordered hers, making small talk and trying not to find it funny when she leaned in and flirted with a girly laugh. Because, really, he'd seen her kick serious ass, and she could field strip a weapon almost as fast as Steve. "Girly" was not a word he applied to her on a normal basis. Or, like, ever.

But she was doing a good impression of it now, leaning in, touching his shoulder, everything he'd learned over the years translated into girl for 'I want you.' He managed to avoid looking over at Steve too much, but he could feel that stare on him, like a physical weight, and every glance confirmed that feeling.

It was just an op, but whatever Steve was sorting through in that crazy brain of his was clearly making the caveman gene worse than usual. Too fucking bad, though. _Killer_ trumped emotionally stunted boyfriend any day of the week.

"You wanna dance?" Danny asked, taking Kono's hand when she nodded and leading her out to the dance floor. He didn't have much trouble imitating the uncomfortable moves of the other victims--dancing had never been his strong suit in high school, and he didn't have to reach too far back to remember those days.

Kono was a much better dancer. She moved in closer, not quite brushing against him, her whole body moving perfectly with the bass and drums throbbing through the entire club. A quick glance at Steve showed that his bottom teeth appeared to be doing a good job of attempting to actually pass through the upper ones. Danny wondered if he should at least go do something to calm him down, but then Chin leaned in and said something, and Steve nodded, leaning back in an obvious attempt to look relaxed, but losing none of the tension in his body.

Danny smiled at Kono, leaning in to say, "We need to wrap this up sooner rather than later."

"We can't leave too early--he may not be here yet."

She smiled as she said it, grabbing Danny's tie just below the knot and using it to pull him in a little before she slid her hand down the length of the tie and let it go. Danny was almost afraid to look at Steve, but he knew that wasn't going to go over well, so he glanced over in time to see Chin pulling hard to get the beer bottle out of Steve's hand, probably to avoid him breaking it.

He looked as though he might actually be thinking about starting a fight with Kono on the dance floor, and Chin put his hand on Steve's arm and said something to him again. It didn't have the same effect as before. "You want another drink?" Danny said to Kono, who nodded, and he led her over to the bar where Steve and Chin sat, his hand on the small of her back just long enough to get her where he wanted her before he dropped all contact.

Danny made a point of going to the open spot right beside Steve to order their drinks. As he leaned in to speak with the bartender, Danny's hand slid behind Steve, touching his back where no one could see. He let it linger, continuing to lean in for a moment after the bartender walked of, turning his head just enough to say, "Yes, I'm yours, now stop it," to Steve before pulling away, turning his back to Steve, and turning his attention to Kono.

He chatted with her while they sipped at their drinks, but he let his backside brush against Steve's arm and thigh occasionally, and he could feel the tension draining a little with each touch. When he thought it was safe again, he led Kono back to the dance floor and put on a show. He couldn't help looking every once in a while to see if Steve was going Cro-Magnon on him, but he seemed to have finally gotten a grip on something other than the beer bottle, and while he was a long way from relaxed, he was at least a safe enough distance from jealous boyfriend not to create a scene.

Several drinks and many dances later, Danny finally saw the hands on his watch nearing midnight. "What do you say we get out of here?" he said to Kono. She giggled--and he really hoped he never had to hear her do that again--and nodded, following him to the bar to pay up before they left. They paused, pretending to discuss which car to take, while really offering Chin and Steve a chance to settle their bill and be ready to follow close behind.

Not that Danny was worried--he had an anklet on, Kono had put a tracer somewhere that he had just been told he didn't need to know about, and both the cars had trackers. Still, he'd seen what this guy had done to his other victims, and he didn't want to take any chances. Especially as Kono would be the most likely recipient of the damage up front.

They drove off in Danny's rental car, heading toward the Hilton, while Danny kept checking for a tail that wasn't Steve. He had just started to wonder about a car that had been a little too close a little too long when it sped past him. He suddenly felt the wheel of his car jerk as the car veered off to the right. Only training kept him from an accident, and he managed to get onto the shoulder without further incident.

Kono leaned out of the passenger seat. "Flat tire," she said, leaving the door open as she turned back to Danny. "Bad luck?"

She was clearly thinking the same thing he was--too much coincidence. "Or something," he muttered, getting out and going around to look at the tire. It was impossible to tell from the shredded wheel at first if there was something fishy about it, but as he knelt down and looked closer, he noticed a couple of nails embedded in the rubber.

He stood, looking at Kono. "Not so much with the bad luck," he said.

Before he could say anything else, the car that had sped past was backing up on the shoulder, and a man got out. "Saw the tire blow in my mirror," the man said. "Anything I can do to help?"

"Thanks," Danny said, resisting the urge to tell him he could've changed a spare tire in his sleep. "I'm all thumbs with this stuff."

"No problem. You should have a spare in the trunk." He went around to the trunk and opened it. Danny gave Kono a quick look, waiting for her to nod and take out her gun from her purse before he walked around the driver's side to join the man behind the car.

Danny turned the corner carefully, but not carefully enough to avoid the tire iron that slammed into the back of his shoulder, just shy of his spine. He went down hard, seeing stars, but thanks to whatever angel was looking out for him, not unconscious, or worse. He heard a scuffle around the front of the car, squealing tires, then a shot, and managed to climb up to his feet, fighting nausea, and made his way around the car carefully, gun drawn.

Kono had her high heeled foot on the man's chest, seemingly uncaring that his shoulder was bleeding from a bullet wound that Danny guessed was from her Kel-Tec. Given that Steve and Chin were both standing there with guns drawn as well, their cars just in front of the rental, doors still open, it was a toss-up, but he put his money on Kono.

Steve saw him and holstered his Sig, leaving the killer in the hands of Chin and Kono and hurrying back to Danny's side. "Are you okay?"

"I'm fine. Though I'm gonna have a hell of a bruise," he said.

"You're sure you're fine?"

Danny nodded carefully, hearing sirens in the distance. "Yes, I'm fine. Stop worrying and help Chin and Kono." They didn't really need help, but he needed Steve to be doing something else when HPD showed up. Half the department was already sure the two of them were sleeping together, and he didn't need to be giving them further evidence on a night like this.

Eventually the killer was stuffed into a cruiser and carted off to lock up to be dealt with in the morning. Danny jokingly thanked Kono for the most interesting date of his life--out of earshot of Steve--and said goodnight to both her and Chin, not even arguing with Steve about driving the Camaro back. His shoulder wasn't so bad that he couldn't drive, but he wasn't exactly in the mood to test it if he didn't have to. Besides, he knew better than to argue about driving tonight, even if he had felt up to it.

"Look, I--"

"Don't talk," Steve said in a strangled voice. "Just...don't talk."

Danny shut up, watching the lights on the side of the road fly by at speeds normal people weren't supposed to drive. They pulled up in front of Steve's house in record time, and Steve's back was ramrod straight, every muscle oozing tension, as Danny followed him inside.

He'd barely gotten the door closed when he found himself pushed hard up against it, Steve's mouth on his in a kiss that would probably hurt if it didn't feel so fucking good. Steve's hands were already working on Danny's fly, and he nipped at Danny's lower lip before letting his mouth go and sinking to his knees, pulling Danny's pants and underwear down in the process.

Danny's protest at the manhandling died in the back of his throat as Steve's mouth covered Danny's dick, taking him all the way down, swallowing around him before pulling back and then going back down again. Danny's head fell back against the door--one more bruise he was sure he'd feel and not care about in the morning--and he gripped Steve's head, fingertips digging into Steve's scalp in an attempt not to start fucking Steve's mouth with abandon.

Because the way Steve was sucking him off, like it was an Olympic sport and he was going for the highest scoring gold ever, was worth keeping still. He couldn't stop the tiny thrusts of his hips in time with the rhythm Steve had set, but he let Steve take the lead. He stared down to see that hot, wet mouth stretched around the whole of Danny's dick, seeing Steve's eyes focused on his even in the relative darkness, watching every expression on Danny's face.

He let go, then, getting off just as much on knowing what his reactions were doing to Steve, letting out a low moan as Steve did some impossible move with his tongue that almost made Danny come right then and there. But he didn't, biting his lip and digging his fingers that much more into Steve's scalp with a little moan that caused Steve's breath to hitch in his throat.

Steve slid slowly off, his lips nibbling on the tip of Danny's cock until Danny was just about pry his eyes open to look down again, but then Steve was moving all the way back down the length of Danny's dick once more, his hand sliding back behind Danny's balls, pressing inside Danny's body--and when the hell had he managed to get his hands coated with something? was Danny's last thought before Steve hit that spot, swallowing around the end of Danny's dick, and he lost the ability to think, lost the ability to do anything but pour his entire body into that heat around him.

He thought he might've hit his head again, knew from the sound that he'd yelled or screamed or something, but he didn't care if half the neighborhood heard because this...this was so fucking good that he'd have done it in the middle of his old precinct if that was what it took to have it.

He realized he was still thrusting slowly into Steve's mouth, and Steve's hands were still on his hips, and Danny relaxed his grip on Steve's head, moving his hands down to cup Steve's jaws on both sides, tipping his head up so Danny could get a good look at him.

Whatever demons Steve was chasing away were still there, and Danny tugged, pulling Steve off him and up into a long kiss, reveling in the heat of Steve's lips, in knowing that heat was from having just had them wrapped around his dick. It was almost too much, and he never wanted to stop.

Steve pulled back, arms going around Danny's waist and, for _fuck's_ sake, picking him up just enough to carry him over to the couch, turning him around and pushing him up against the arm and giving him a shove. Only then did Danny realize what Steve wanted--God forbid the man should ever use words--and he went over without resistance, bent over the couch, his ass in the air.

He felt Steve fumbling around in his cargo pants, heard a rip and a noise he recognized that, combined with the slick fingers pushing into Danny's ass a moment later, made him wonder how the fuck Steve ever explained a condom and lube in one of his cargo pockets. Hopefully he never had to--he'd better _not_ have to, Danny thought darkly, before giving up all thought as Steve pulled three fingers out and he felt the pressure of Steve's dick sliding in.

This...this was the ultimate, one thing he never wanted to give up. He would go back to HPD, he would quit being a cop, whatever it took short of giving up his daughter, as long as he could feel Steve's dick slowly opening him up, Steve's fingers digging into Danny's hips, his breath held so still, except for a few shudders Steve couldn't contain until he was as far in as he could get, balls pressed hard against Danny's ass, Steve holding so perfectly still, as if he couldn't believe he was there, as if he worried that moving would end this perfect, perfect dream.

But even a SEAL was only a man, in the end, and he had to move. That first pull out and thrust back in was almost as good as that initial invasion, and every thrust that followed never failed to get Danny going, even if he'd just been so expertly sucked off. His dick was getting hard again, rubbing against the rough fabric on the arm of the couch, wringing sick little noises out of the back of his throat. Danny could feel Steve's lips and teeth on his back, leaving marks, Danny knew, but only laying soft kisses on the spot where he'd been hit with the tire iron, before moving on to unmarked skin to leave more evidence.

'Property of Steve,' Danny thought, wondering if one day Steve would just insist on writing it there in those exact words. Each thrust back into Danny's body, hitting him just right, pushing his dick against the couch to make it that much better, was accompanied with another mark, another bite, pain just on the right side of pleasure, and really, Danny got it, this possession need, what with the murder scene and watching Kono flirt with Danny all night, and Danny's injury--it had been a hell of a week for Steve. And it's not as Steve would ever hurt him--if he's honest, it's some of the best sex he's ever had in his life.

But seriously, what did he have to do to prove that yes, Steve, I am in fact yours and--oh, _God_ , a hard thrust derailed his train of thought for a minute, and he found Steve's forearms behind him and gripped hard, pushing back into the thrusts. Like that wasn't proof that he is so Steve's that to doubt it for half a second is ludicrous, and yet he keeps expecting Steve to insist on having 'Steve' tattooed on Danny's ass, maybe with a 'Property of' above it, and he wouldn't actually mind a small 'S' or something, maybe on his left hand to match the cross on his right from Grace's birth, but--

Jesus _fuck_! He had to push off the couch to press his back to Steve's chest, feeling the sweat and heat there, grabbing Steve's wrists and pulling his arms round to encircle Danny's stomach, using the couch as leverage against his thighs to push back, getting Steve as deep inside him as he could manage, tightening his ass around Steve's dick until he pushed in even harder, moving the couch a little with his last thrust and letting go, yelling Danny's name as he came, buried deep and hard inside Danny's body.

Danny grabbed Steve's hand, moving it with his own to wrap them together around Danny's dick, pulling on it a little desperately, coming hard soon after, keeping them both on their feet with a combination of pressure against Steve's body and the couch until they could stand on their own once more.

He heard Steve sniff, his nose somewhere close to Danny's ear, before he unglued his skin from Danny's and pulled back and out, leaving Danny sore and empty. Danny dropped his hands to the couch arm, breathing hard as he gathered up the little bit of himself still missing before pushing off the couch and turning to face Steve.

It was only then that he realized his shirt was bunched up around his shoulders and his pants were pooled around his ankles. Steve had managed to toss his shirt, but his cargo pants were also circling his ankles, the tips of his boots peeking out from overtop the material. But he was grinning at Danny, the tension he'd been holding all night entirely gone, looking utterly fucked and happy about it, and Danny could only laugh before he toed off his shoes and pants and underpants, somehow managing to get his shirt and tie off as well.

Steve still hadn't moved, was, in fact, staring at Danny with what was looking like the beginnings of enough hunger for a second round. "Not so fast," Danny muttered, his hand on Steve's chest for a moment before he bent down and undid Steve's boots, getting rid of them and the rest of his clothes. "Sleep first." At Steve's obvious disappointment, Danny shook his head. "Nap, at least?"

Steve pondered that for a moment, then nodded, and let Danny lead him up the stairs and onto the bed. Danny had barely settled in before Steve's arms and legs were wrapped around him tightly, and his last thought before falling asleep was that they were really going to have to talk. Tomorrow.


	3. Lockdown

It felt like they'd been asleep for all of five minutes when the phone rang, but the pale sunlight peeking in through the windows proved it was more like five hours. Danny managed to pull his arm out from under Steve, who was draped over Danny's body like a blanket, and grab for the phone.

"What?"

"Commander McGarrett?" The Governor was far too awake for this time of the day.

Danny sighed. "No, he's asleep. Uh, upstairs."

"Right, of course, Daniel," she said, sounding amused, "upstairs."

Well, it wasn't a lie. He was asleep upstairs. Danny was just there with him. "I'll get him on the phone," he said.

"You do that. Upstairs."

She was all but laughing, and Danny muted the phone and counted to ten as he shook Steve awake. "What's wrong?" Steve said, rolling off Danny and sitting up in bed, actually managing to sound as if he hadn't just been out so deep he hadn't even heard the phone.

"I don't know," Danny said, "but the Governor's on the phone."

He unmuted the phone and handed it to Steve, who hit the speaker button so Danny could hear. "Hello, Governor."

"Commander," she said, still sounding amused. "Sorry to bother you so early, especially on a Saturday, but I'm afraid it can't wait. We've just received information that a very large shipment of guns is about to be delivered and sold in Hawaii. What we don't know is exactly when, where or by whom."

"It's not like there are a lot of players who can handle a large shipment in this region," Steve said, frowning.

"You're right, except that everything seems to point to an entirely new group of players. Hence the urgency. We have very little time and not much to go on."

Steve nodded, even though she couldn't see him. "We'll be in shortly. Send us everything you have."

"Already waiting on you. Sorry, I know it's been a long couple of weeks."

Considering she'd called Danny directly to find out how Steve was doing after the Waters murder, Danny knew she was sincere. And yet she was calling anyway. "That's what we're here for," Steve said, ruining the effect--at least on Danny's end of the conversation--with a yawn.

"Thank you."

Steve hung up, and Danny took the phone and put it back on the base. "I'm starting to daydream about sleep," Danny said.

"I know." Steve rubbed his face, then shook his head. "Okay," he said, his hand landing on Danny's shoulder for a second, "let's go."

They called Chin and Kono from the car and told them to come in. By the time Chin and Kono joined them, Steve and Danny were already sorting through the evidence, what little there was of it. "I don't even know how they got that much from this little," Danny said, frowning as he looked through the papers again.

"See, this line," Steve pointed at an email from one of the alleged gun runners, "that's how they know the size of the shipment. It's code for--"

"Yes, that part I followed, thank you, I'm not five years old." He held the papers up with both hands. "It's just--codes and guesses and adding one and one and getting four...it doesn't give us much to work with is what I'm saying."

"We'll figure it out."

Chin was looking at the email Danny still held in one hand. "They included the email headers, so we can start with the IP addresses and do some tracing there."

Danny handed him the print out. "I don't know what that means, but I'll take it," he said.

Kono was looking at a grainy picture she'd pulled out of the small stack of papers. "This place looks familiar. Let me start scanning all of this into the computer and see if it can help us figure out something we might be missing on our own."

"You do that," Danny said, before draining his mug. "I'm going for more coffee."

He hadn't even hit the button to brew the coffee when he heard Steve coming up behind him. "Tired?" Steve asked, left hand landing on Danny's shoulder, drifting lightly over the tire iron bruise he knew was under the shirt--eerily accurate on the location, Danny realized, not that he was surprised.

"I'm fine." He turned around to face Steve. "We still need to talk." He held up a hand to stop Steve before he could start. "No, not now, obviously. But...soon. Fucking gun runners couldn't wait one more day to accidentally reveal the tip of their annoying little plan?"

"Clearly we need to give the criminals a copy of our personal schedules."

"Think maybe if we told them the next three years were booked they'd stay out of Hawaii?"

"Worth a try."

The coffee finished streaming into Danny's cup and he turned back around to pull the mug out, adding a generous amount of sugar before tasting it. "It's not sleep, but it's better than nothing," he said, heading for the door. "Coming?"

"In a minute." Steve held up his own empty coffee mug

Danny went back into the main room. Chin and Kono were bent over opposite sides of the computer table, but they looked up, saw Danny alone, and stopped in unison to fix Danny with identical expressions.

  
"What's with the Wonder Twins thing?"

"What?" they said at the same time.

"Never mind. What's wrong?"

Chin glanced at Kono, who looked at the door. "How's he doing?" she asked.

"He'll be fine," Danny said, reluctant to talk about any of it with them, especially before he and Steve really had a chance to talk. "And my shoulder's fine, too, by the way, thanks for asking."

Kono sighed. "Danny--"

Steve walked in, silencing her. When Danny looked back at the computer table, Chin and Kono were huddled over it once more, as if they hadn't ever stopped. They went back to working on the case, and by the time Steve left the room again, it was as if the question had never been asked.

By Wednesday, Danny would've given up his right arm for even the amount of sleep he'd gotten Friday night. They were gaining ground on their gun runners, and knew the sale wasn't going down until Friday, which was good. But if they didn't gain a little faster, they would be too late, and they were all frustrated and exhausted.

Steve had, at least, been acting normal. Acting being the operative word. Something was off, and Danny was too tired to figure it out, and they were too busy trying to catch the gun runners to talk.

The conversation, unfortunately, wasn't one they could fit in between shoveling down meals over paper trails on their gun runners, running down leads, and falling into bed long enough to have sex and pass out. And even if Danny had been willing to say, whoa, hang on, put that back in your pants so we can talk, he wasn't stupid. He could see it in Steve's eyes, could feel it in the way he held on too tight-- trying to stop him to talk would not be helping anything. All he could do for the moment was give him what he needed.

The way Steve stroked his fingers lightly over the tire iron bruise, the rest of his body tense, but his fingers so, so gentle, wasn't lost on Danny either. Steve might be pretending like nothing was wrong, but he hadn't gotten over anything. Not yet. And maybe he never would.

Danny was never going to stop nagging him about things like driving too fast, leaping off things that could get him killed--there was a long list. It was less about getting over it and more about learning how to live with it, especially when what you were living with was letting someone you cared about throw themselves into danger head first.

If he could live with it when that person was Steven "I'm going to jump off this cliff holding a grenade" McGarrett, Steve sure as hell could find a way to return the favor.

He checked his watch, wondering where Steve was. He'd gone to follow up on a lead that had turned out to be another dead end, and called to say he'd be back soon, but that had been half an hour ago. He should've been back in fifteen minutes.

Danny went back to the papers he'd been reading, new communications they'd collected that morning, frowning as he read a phrase for the third time. "Engaging tropical vista," he muttered out loud. Something about it seemed vaguely familiar.

Then it hit him--he'd seen the phrase in a listing for a rental when he'd first moved to Hawaii. The realtor had used it to describe the view, and it had stuck in his memory. He'd even looked at the place, which had been a nice size, despite the 'engaging tropical vista' actually being a parking lot, with a few straggly palm trees on the other side. It had been a little too much money anyway, and he'd ended up in his one-room shit hole instead.

Surely it couldn't be that easy. He went back to his computer and searched for the term, and found the house as the only result. Would the gun runners really have risked giving away their location like that? It didn't seem likely, but they were running out of time and leads, so he should at least check it out.

Chin and Kono were off talking to a source, and Danny tried to reach Steve, but got voicemail again. He left a message with information on where he was going, left a note for Chin and Kono, and headed out to the Camaro. The house was about half an hour from HQ, but the parking lot was exactly like he remembered it, with only about a fourth of the spots filled. Not as good for surveillance if he wanted to blend in, but it did offer a great view of the house.

He parked, watching the house from his car for a while as the sun sank lower in the sky, but nothing happened. In a couple of hours it would be dark and much harder to see anything. Then again, he assumed at least one of the cars in the lot belonged to the current occupants. Maybe if he looked around at the cars, he might get lucky a second time. He got out carefully, looking around his own car and frowning as if he'd lost something. Slowly, he moved to each car, pretending to look, while checking out what was inside of each.

The fifth car was a beat up late-90s Taurus, which had likely once been silver, but was now a dirty brownish-gray. It was the kind of car you wouldn't even notice on the street, but when Danny saw the papers on the passenger seat, it had his full attention. He recognized a picture in the pile as the one Kono had thought was familiar, but had yet to place. He suspected, however, that the map lying under it might pinpoint the location. If he could just get a slightly better look, he thought, rubbing the window to clear away the dirt.

"What the hell do you think you're doing to my car?"

Danny crouched down, pulling his phone out of his pocket. "Nothing," he said, standing and holding up his phone. Three goons stood side by side a few feet away. "I was talking to my ex, and I got mad and kicked the phone, and have been trying to find it. It was under your car. Sorry."

"Really?" The middle goon asked. And Danny had thought it sounded believable, but apparently not so much. "It looks like it's in good shape for something you kicked across sandy pavement."

Danny shrugged. "What can I say, Windows Mobile is sturdier than it looks."

"Right."

Figures he'd end up with criminals who weren't as stupid as they looked. "Anyway," Danny said, side stepping to the end of the car, "I'll just be heading home now."

"I don't think so," the man said. As the three advanced on him, with the car blocking him from behind, Danny did the only thing he could. He dropped his phone, shoved it just underneath their car with his foot, and surrendered.

And of course, it being Wednesday (and he was really starting to hate Wednesdays), they put in him a windowless room and tied him to a chair. At least they used rope and not duct tape, which he was thankful for. Because duct tape hurt like a bitch when you ripped it off, no matter how you did it, and the mere fact that he knew that far too well made him hate Wednesdays even more.

He jerked at the ropes a little just to have something to do. In addition to not being entirely stupid, the goons were apparently good with knots. They'd tied him pretty thoroughly, arms behind his back, legs to the chair, and he was stuck with nothing to do wait for rescue. Wait...and stare at the particularly hideous pineapple wallpaper that the dim overhead light managed to make look sinister. He hoped that the team showed up before that wallpaper drove him crazy.

There was no doubt the team would show up. Their gun runners weren't stupid, but they were cocky, and cocky people made stupid mistakes, no matter how smart they were. They also had no idea what they were up against. The only reason they were keeping him was so that in "the unlikely event someone actually catches up with us, we have leverage." So they'd said before they'd smacked him around a bit, anyway--and really, he'd had worse, but they were easily fooled by a little blood into thinking they'd really hurt him.

He didn't disabuse them of the notion.

Steve had the address on his voicemail, and Chin and Kono had it on paper back at HQ. His rescue was not in question. In fact, he was kind of surprised the team wasn't there already. Then again, it would only just be getting dark out, if his concept of time wasn't completely fucked up, and darkness would give them an edge in taking the house unnoticed.

As if on cue, he heard shouting and gunfire from the front of the house. The firefight over with satisfying speed, and the echoes of the last shots weren't even gone when he heard Steve yelling his name. "In here!" Danny called back, glad the gun runners hadn't bothered to cover his mouth. A moment later, Steve was crashing through the door, gun out, checking every corner from the doorway. "You think they'd have let me call out to you if someone had been in here?" Danny asked.

Steve blinked, frowning as he holstered his Sig. "I was just being thorough," he said, kneeling beside the chair to try untying the knots in the ropes around Danny's hands. He spent a few seconds on it before growling, pulling out his knife, and cutting the ropes away.

"Thank you," Danny said, rubbing his wrists gingerly and starting to flex his legs. He felt creaky as he moved around, but he was starting to feel like the chair was becoming a permanent part of his ass, so he pushed himself up to his feet, only to lose his balance and fall into Steve. "Sorry."

He glanced up at Steve's face, frowning at the look there. Steve was staring past Danny, and Danny followed his eye line to see it was the chair that had Steve's attention. Of course. Another chair, one week to the day from the Waters murder. "Can we get out of here?" Danny said, pushing Steve toward the door. "I'm sick of the wallpaper."

The nudge seemed to shake Steve back into his 'acting normal' self. "Kind of ironic," he said, fingering the design before he walked out. "What with your fondness for pineapples."

"Shut up," Danny said, giving him a little shove toward the front of the house. Chin, Kono and several members of HPD were busy removing the gun runners from the house and bagging evidence. Danny stopped to talk to Chin and Kono, but he'd barely gotten a sentence out before Steve was guiding him out the door.

Only when they stopped at the back of an ambulance did Danny realize what was going on. "I'm fine," he said, glaring at Steve.

"Humor me."

" _Humor_ you? I humor you every _day_ , Steven. I let you call me Danno, I let you blow shit up, I let you put your neck on the line--I don't think I need to stoop to getting checked out over a couple of punches." He looked at the EMT, nodding at her with a quick smile. "No offense, I'm sure you are very good at your job, but I'm fine."

Steve took a deep breath, looking down his nose at Danny in that way that caused an itch under Danny's skin, just at the base of his hairline. "Don't make me lie to Grace the next time she asks me if I take care of you out here."

"That's low." Danny growled, but Steve just continued to stare at him. "Fine." He hopped up onto the back of the ambulance, managing to hide the wince from the movement, and let his feet dangle over the bumper. "Just so you know, I am doing this under protest, _solely_ for Grace's benefit--and so this nice lady here didn't come all the way out here for nothing." He smiled at the EMT. "I appreciate your sacrifice," he said, "I know we keep you busy."

She smiled as she wrapped a blood pressure cuff around his arm. "The overtime is paying for my daughter's college," she said. "Don't sweat it."

"See?" Steve said. "We're helping her put her kid through school. Isn't that great?"

" _You_ are psychotic," Danny said, wincing as the cuff tightened on his arm, his muscles sore from being tied behind his back for so long. The EMT checked other routine things, poked around his bruises a bit, and pronounced him to be fine, relatively speaking.

"You see that, Steven? I'm fine."

Steve rolled his eyes. "Relatively speaking."

"Whatever, can I go back to doing my job now?"

Surveying the scene for a long moment, Steve shrugged. "They look like they're winding up. Let me take you home."

As much as Danny wanted to argue, he looked around and realized Steve was right. There wasn't much left for him to do, and he'd only be in the way while CSU did its job. "Fine." Danny hopped off the ambulance and thanked the EMT before following Steve to his truck. "I need to get my car," he said as Steve pulled away from the scene.

"We found it." Steve said, his jaw tight. "And your phone, which led us right to _their_ car." He reached into his pocket and took out Danny's keys and his phone, handing them over. "Nice work with that, by the way. HPD took care of the Camaro. It should be waiting for you."

"Thanks." The ride passed in silence after that. Danny was nursing muscles that ached now that the adrenaline had worn off, and Steve seemed lost in some less than pleasant thoughts. Danny had a feeling that might have something to do with Steve's father's death, the Waters murder and now this, but he didn't know what to say, and short of banning chairs from existence, he didn't know how to stop it from happening in their line of work. Bad guys liked to tie people to chairs. There really was no getting around it.

So he closed his eyes and tried to ignore the aches every time they hit a bump. It wasn't until they made a turn that seemed odd that he opened his eyes and realized they were going to his apartment, not Steve's house. He gave Steve a long look, but either he was too busy thinking to notice, or he was ignoring it.

They pulled up, and Danny saw his car was parked there, which explained it. He could've done with not having to drive until tomorrow, but he also wasn't fond of leaving her here overnight unattended.

He undid the seatbelt and reached for the door handle, but Steve's words stopped him cold. "Get some sleep. I'll see you tomorrow at HQ."

Danny ignored the twinge as he twisted his head to look at Steve. He was facing Danny, but his eyes were fixed on Danny's hand on the door. "O...kay." He wanted to ask why the hell he was being relegated to his own place yet again, but they were somewhere in that gray area of dating--if you could call what they were doing dating--where he felt the right to ask, but not necessarily the ability.

"You need some sleep," Steve said, softly, as if that was the only explanation for him dropping Danny off.

"Okay...." Danny shook his head. He was too tired to argue. "Yeah, I'll see you tomorrow."

He got out of the truck and made his way slowly up the stairs, feeling Steve's gaze the entire way. When he had closed the door, he heard the truck pull away.

Not for the first time, he wondered if this was really worth it. There were easier relationships to be had--even without the obvious issues of a relationship with his partner, who happened to be a very male Navy SEAL, even if he was in the reserves, Steve was a great big mess. Only an idiot would choose to jump into the middle of that.

But then, there wasn't much of a choice. It just _was_ , and he couldn't stop himself any more than he could stop Steve from breaking every rule in the playbook on the job. Steve might be a basket case, but he was Danny's basket case, and nothing else mattered in the end.

And he'd need a lot of sleep to deal with his basket case in the morning, Danny realized. He headed off to the shower, wondering if that morning would come in the middle of the night with Steve standing over him, waiting to attack.

When he realized he hoped the answer was yes, he knew he was really screwed.

***

Danny awoke to bright sunlight, the sound of his alarm buzzing softly, and the sound of Mr. Kapule's incredibly bad singing over the knocking shower pipes in the apartment next door. There was no sign of Steve, no sign he'd been there, and Danny's phone had no texts, voicemails or missed calls.

He wasn't sure if that was good or bad. He wouldn't find out if he didn't get to work, though, so he stretched a little to work out the aches and got ready to go. Steve's truck was in its parking spot when Danny pulled into his own beside it. The truck had apparently been there for some time, judging by the cold tires and engine.

They were really going to have to have a talk about his apparent lack of understanding that even he, on occasion, needed to sleep.

Kono was coming out of the front door of the building as Danny walked up the short steps. "We catch a case?" Danny asked, not sure if he wanted the answer to be yes or no.

She shook her head. "I'm going for coffee."

They had a state of the art coffee machine that could make almost anything they wanted. "Why?"

"I don't know what you did to piss McGarrett off, but my coffee break is going to be very long if you don't promise to fix it when you get in there."

"What I did?" Danny threw his hands in the air. "What I _did_ was get dumped off at my place like a library book he'd had out too long and told to 'get some sleep.' So if you're waiting for _me_ to fix whatever's wrong with him, you might as well make the coffee break a day off."

She nodded. "Good idea. Call me if we get a case. I'll be at the shore."

They hadn't had a day off in around two weeks, and the informal rule was that they could take time here and there as long as they were reachable, so he just waved and watched her disappear around the corner before going inside.

He could hear Steve yelling when he walked through the doors. The silence that followed, punctuated by more yelling, told him at least it was someone on the phone getting reamed, and not Chin. Danny went to the kitchen to find Chin sitting at the table with a cup of coffee.

"What did you do to him, brah?" Chin asked.

"Why does everyone assume this is my fault? The guy is certifiably insane--maybe his imaginary friend drank the last of his protein shakes." Chin raised an eyebrow and sipped at his coffee. "Okay, fine," Danny continued, "we may occasionally piss each other off a little, but I _swear_ to you, this one is not on me. I haven't seen him since he dropped me off last night."

Chin put the coffee down. "I see."

"You see? You see what?"

"Never mind." He got up. "Have you seen Kono?"

Danny punched the button on the coffee machine with more force than necessary. "I saw her out front. She was going surfing."

"Damn. She beat me to it."

For a second, Danny thought of telling him to go, too. They usually tried not to be more than one man down during a weekday, but it had been a hell of a couple of weeks, and it wasn't like they would be that far away if anything happened. Then Steve's yelling was punctuated with a slam. "Too bad," Danny said, not giving a damn if he was a coward who didn't want to be left alone with Steve all day, "you'll have to be faster next time."

"I'll be filing if you need me," Chin said, picking up his coffee and leaving the kitchen. Danny knew there wasn't that much that needed to be filed, since most of the paperwork for the last two weeks was still unfinished on his desk, but the filing room was the most remote room in their offices. He had a feeling Chin would find a way to be in there for a long time.

He took his coffee toward his office, then realized that the yelling had stopped. Might as well at least get this part over with, he decided, switching directions and stopping just inside Steve's door. "Morning," he said.

Steve looked up from the files he was tearing through, the anger on his face shuttering down instantly to a polite mask. "Morning," he replied, eyes fixed on Danny's coffee cup. "Feeling better?"

"Oh, yes, a night on the crappy pull out sofa in my apartment was just what the doctor ordered."

Steve's jaw looked like it was about to crack under pressure, but the polite mask remained otherwise. "You should've taken something."

"I didn't want to sleep through any home invasions," Danny said, intentionally baiting now. "But apparently I didn't have to worry."

"You want your home to be invaded in the middle of the night?" Steve asked, the mask slipping just enough to show confusion.

"Depends on who does the invading."

The mask slammed back into place. "Oh." He glanced down at his files. "I've got to, uh...the Governor. I need to take her a file, and it's..somewhere here," he said, waving a hand at the pile.

"Good luck with that," Danny said, retreating to his office.

He lost himself in paperwork, the only good thing about that part of his job, only noticing how long he'd been at it when his stomach growled. He checked his watch, surprised to find it was after 2. Stretching a little, his muscles protesting, he got up and went to find Chin, who was still in the filing room. He was working at a laptop, confirming Danny's suspicion that he'd gone in there to hide. "Have you eaten?" Danny asked.

"Yeah, I brought lunch. I ate a little while ago."

Danny nodded. "I'm going to get some food," he said, turning around and heading for the front door. He could hear Steve banging around in his office, and after a moment of hesitation, he stopped there. "How'd it go with the Governor?"

"Fine," Steve said, not looking up from his computer.

"I'm going to go get something to eat. Have you eaten?"

Steve was staring at his screen as if it contained the secret to life. "No, but I'm fine," he said. "I'll eat later."

So he'd been there since God only knew what time that morning and hadn't eaten, and he still wasn't interested if Danny was involved. Warring between "what the fuck?" and "whatever," Danny's stomach made the decision for him when it growled again. "I'll be back," he said, leaving before Steve could ignore him any further.

He went out to Caffe Grazie, where at least the pasta almost reminded him of home, if he didn't think too hard about it, lingering over his meal before finally dragging himself back to the office. He stopped by Steve's office, and he could've sworn Steve picked up the non-ringing phone as Danny rounded the corner, but he was listening as if it was a matter of national security.

Danny sighed, dropping a sandwich on Steve's desk, because a pissed off Steve combined with a starving Steve was not a good combination. He left Steve to his very possibly imaginary conversation and went back to his office to bury himself in paperwork.

He was almost done when Chin appeared in his doorway. "I'm heading home," he said. Though neither of them would say it for fear of jinxing it, Danny knew they were both thinking the same thing--maybe the quiet day meant they'd get at least one quiet night. They all needed the rest, but Danny also needed the time to talk to Steve before this went any further.

"Have a good one," Danny said, stretching in his chair again as Chin walked out. He looked at his watch and decided the last few papers could wait. The ones that needed Steve's signature Danny picked up and carried quietly into Steve's office, careful not to give him enough warning to suddenly be on the phone again.

He was sitting at his desk, staring at nothing. "Hey," Danny said, and Steve jumped a little.

"Didn't know you were there," Steve said, almost, but not quite, meeting Danny's eyes.

"I did the hard part," Danny said, holding up the stack of files. "Your turn."

Steve nodded as Danny laid the stack on the desk. "Thanks. You should head out, man."

"Really?" Danny wondered if Steve actually thought that was going to work, or if it was a Hail Mary. "I don't think so."

"Sure, go ahead. It's been a long couple of weeks."

Shaking his head, Danny shifted to lean against Steve's desk. "How well do you know me?"

Steve blinked a few times. "Pretty well, I guess?"

"So what about me, exactly, makes you think I'm just going to meekly go home and pretend like there's nothing going on here?"

The polite mask remained, but barely, as Steve tensed up. "There's nothing going on. You just need a rest."

"I'm old enough to figure out when I need to sleep, thanks," Danny snapped. "I don't think the same could be said for you."

"I'm fine."

"You sure about that?"

The mask was slipping, and Steve's eyes narrowed. "I said I'm fine."

"I know what you said," Danny replied. "I'm just not sure you're using the same definition of fine as the rest of us."

The muscle in Steve's jaw was twitching. "Danny," he said, his voice low and dangerous, "go home."

"No." If provoking a fight was the only way he was going to get through to Steve, then so be it.

"Go. Home."

"Make. Me."

Steve pushed himself out of the chair and was standing less than an inch away from Danny in a flash. "You need to go _now_ ," he said, his face close to Danny's.

"Or what?" Danny asked, leaning in until their noses were almost touching. "What are you gonna do?" He didn't even care if he got punched at this point--enough was enough. "What do you _care_ enough to do, Steve? Tell me, because I don't know anymore."

"You're right," Steve said sharply, muscles so tight Danny could see the veins in his neck. "You don't know what I'm gonna do. So you should get out now."

"Why? I know you're not gonna hurt me--that would require laying your hands on me. And you can't handle that right now, can you?"

Something hot and dark burned in Steve's eyes for a brief second before he...shut down. Danny didn't know how else to describe it. His eyes were as blank as his face, and it was ten times worse than before the argument. "I'm not doing this," was all he said, as if he was speaking with a complete stranger. He backed away, leaning against the wall, and folded his arms over his chest and looked right through Danny as if he didn't even know him.

"Right." Danny nodded, flexing his fingers in and out of a fist. "Okay."

"So I'll see you tomorrow?" Danny considered his options long enough that Steve actually met his eyes. "You forget where your car was?" Steve asked.

"No, no, I know where that is." Danny shifted his weight, making his decision. "But I actually came in here for another reason. Well, I came in here to give you the files to sign, obviously, but there's a problem I need you to deal with down the hall."

Steve blinked. "What is it?"

"I'm not exactly sure. But it needs to be fixed before it gets any worse."

"Tell me where it is. I'll go look in a few minutes."

Danny shook his head. "I need to show you."

"Danny, I'm not in the mood--"

"Oh come on, Steven. This is your task force. You have to deal with this."

He sighed heavily. "Fine." He pushed away from the wall and started toward the door.

Danny took one moment to make sure Steve's gun was on the desk before leading the way down the hall to the interrogation room. "Damn. Can I borrow your phone?" Danny asked as they reached the door. "I just need to make a quick call to Grace and I have to call her before she leaves for her friends' house."

Steve pulled his phone out of his pocket and handed it to Danny before walking into the interrogation room. Danny pulled the door shut and made sure it locked, and nobody on Earth could blame him for getting a little enjoyment out of the look of shock on Steve's face, before Danny turned and walked away.

He went to his office and sent a text to Chin about where to find them if something came up. He placed Steve's phone next to his in a drawer, taking his time to give Steve time to think. After gathering a few things he'd need, he went back to interrogation to see Steve pacing like a caged panther. Danny unlocked the door long enough to step inside, letting it close with a particular click that made Steve jump. "You just--"

"Locked that door? Yes. Yes, I did." Danny put the bottles of water he'd brought with him on the table. "Because you and I are going to talk."

"That only opens from the outside when you do that, unless--tell me you have the key."

"I will tell you no such thing. You are stuck here with me until someone shows up tomorrow and lets us out."

Steve stared at him. "You're joking."

"Do I look like I'm joking?" Danny waved at the bottles. "I brought water and everything."

"Are you insane? What if there's a fire?"

"Well, I don't think there's enough water in those to put it out, so I guess we'll burn together."

Steve stared at him. "What if we catch a case?"

"Then Chin and Kono will have to come here anyway and they'll find us." He left out the part where Chin already knew where they were. The less Steve thought someone might come save him, the better.

"What the hell is wrong with you, Danny?"

Danny's eyebrows shot up. "Me? What's wrong with _me_? I'm not the one walking around alternately biting everyone's head off and acting like polite-pod-Steve. No, that would be _you_ , my friend."

"What? I'm fine." He stopped pacing then, his eyes on the bottles of water. "There is nothing wrong with me."

"Oh there are _so_ many things wrong with you I don't even know where to start, babe. And the mere fact that you think that there _isn't_ anything wrong would be scary, except I know you're lying. So why don't you man up and tell me the truth. _What_ is really going on here?"

Steve drummed his fingers on his thigh, his gaze making it to Danny's chin. "Okay, fine. You wanna do this now? Okay. I think we should stop."

"Stop? Stop what?"

"This. Us. We should...stop."

"Should we now? Why is that?"

"Because... " Steve turned on his heel, slowly crossing to the other side of the room, "because it's a bad idea."

Danny perched on the edge of the table, arms folded over his chest. "Really? Where have I heard that before? Oh, wait, from me. Less than a month ago. I said, _repeatedly_ , 'This is a bad idea, Steven,' and you said 'no, no, this is a _great_ idea!' You were very emphatic about it as you all but dragged me by the hair to your bedroom."

"Oh, yeah," Steve pivoted again, pacing back across the floor, "and you were kicking and screaming the whole way."

"No, I was not, and do you know why? Because you persuaded me--very effectively, I might add--that this was an _excellent_ idea."

"Then we were both wrong."

Blinking, Danny balled his hand into a fist under his arm, restraining himself from lashing out. "We were wrong? How do you figure that one?"

"Because I'm in the goddamn Navy for Christ's sake! If they found out--"

"Nice try, Super SEAL, but Don't Ask Don't Tell don't matter no more. What's your next argument?"

Steve's nostrils flared as he continued to pace, only glancing in Danny's direction from time to time. "We're partners," he said, finally. "There are rules."

Danny laughed, both his hands in fists now, clutching at his shirt. " _Rules_? When the hell have you ever cared about _rules_ , other than to laugh in their face as you're breaking them?"

Steve whirled around to face Danny. "At least I'm not off getting myself kidnapped and strapped to a chair and beaten or...worse!"

"Oh, no, you never get yourself caught or injured! Ever!" Danny raked a hand through his hair before putting the hand tightly back under his other arm again. "Look," he said, trying to bring his voice back under control, "I _get_ that what happened last week freaked you out, okay? I get it. I was there the day your father was murdered--you have to know I get it, right?"

"That has nothing to do with this!"

Danny laughed. "Right. Nothing to do with it, and yet me being tied to a _chair_ yesterday was apparently your last straw. You do know that _chairs_ are not inherently evil, right?"

"Shut up, Danny, or I'll find a way to break bulletproof glass just to get out of here."

"No. Because I am not going to let you throw away any chance you have of a semi-normal non-work life."

Steve snorted. "You think pretty highly of yourself there, bud."

"Well, fine, then, if it isn't me you're running from, it'll be someone else!" Danny yelled, waiting until he saw that sink in. "And I'm not letting you do it, Steven. You want to get rid of me, you're going to need a better reason than 'You got yourself tied to a chair,' because really, Steven, you see this chair?" Danny picked up one of the chairs from under the table. "Watch this."

He threw it hard against the wall, smashing it into several very satisfying pieces, before turning back to Steve. "It's just a _chair_. It _breaks_."

Steve was staring at the pieces of wood. "It's not the chair," he said, his voice low.

"I know," Danny said quietly, most of his anger dissipating with the force of smashing the chair. "I know what it is. And you do, too. I can see it."

"Danny." Steve's voice was soft now, pleading."Just...don't. Let it go. _Please_."

Danny hardened his heart against the tone. "Why?"

"I just...we can't. _I_ can't."

"You can't what?"

Steve walked over to the far corner, turning to lean back into it, his arms so tight over his chest he was practically hugging himself. "I can't do this."

"Do what?"

"This! Us! I can't, because I couldn't stand it if--"

"If what?" Steve shook his head, staring at his feet, and Danny pushed off the table and walked slowly over to him. "Let me help you out, then," he said, stopping just a foot away from Steve. "You couldn't stand it if something happened to me?"

Steve nodded, and Danny let out a long breath. "You do realize that all the training in the world isn't going to make this go away? You could never even look at me again and it wouldn't change what you felt if something happened to me, you know that, right?"

"But at least it won't be my fault," Steve said.

"I have news for you, babe. I decided to go into law enforcement on my own. I can quit anytime I want. So if you think that somehow makes _any_ possibility of something happening to me your fault, then you have a _highly_ over-developed sense of your super powers."

"There are a lot of people gunning for me," Steve said. "The chance of one of them... _retaliating_ by using you--"

"You mean like they did your mother and your father?"

"That's not--"

"Yes it is. It's _exactly_ what you were thinking, and it's _exactly_ the problem. You think that one day you're going to walk in to some scene, or get a call, and it's going to be _me_ , and you're going to have to go through that all over again. Tell me I'm wrong."

That got Steve's eyes to at least dart up to meet Danny's for a second before they landed on the floor again. "I know that scares the hell out of you," Danny said, quietly, "and I know you've had your share of losses, and I _get_ that there have been enough issues with _chairs_ this week to make stronger men than you run for the hills."

He got another one of those startled glances, and really, if this weren't quite so serious, he would laugh at how little Steve realized he was transparent. At least to Danny. "But you can't let it win. Don't give up just because you think it'll somehow make it easier if I get hurt or kil--"

"Don't say it!" Steve was looking at him now, his eyes intense. "Just don't."

"Okay." Danny held his hands up, palms toward Steve. "Like I said, I _get_ that you are scared. You think it doesn't stop my heart every time you do some stupid crazy ninja move? Why do you think I get so pissed at you for it? You think I just like yelling at you in general?"

He thought maybe, possibly he might've seen a brief glimmer of a smile tugging at the corner of Steve's mouth at that. Or at the very least, some hint of something that wasn't fear. "Tell you what," Danny said, moving closer, ignoring the sudden flare of panic in Steve's eyes. "I'll give you a chance."

Danny opened his stance as he moved closer still, straddling Steve's legs where they stuck out a little from the wall. "Give me sixty seconds, and if you can tell me that you don't want me, I'll give up."

He leaned in, capturing Steve's lips, light, easy pressure at first, dragging his tongue across them until Steve opened his mouth. Danny pushed inside, his hands moving down Steve's sides to his hips, one hand reaching between them to cup Steve through his pants. He stroked, feeling Steve's hips automatically adjust to the rhythm as Danny's other hand moved to the back of Steve's neck.

Steve's arms moved at last, wrapping around Danny and pulling him closer until Danny had to take his hand out from between them. Steve whimpered into Danny's mouth, hips thrusting against Danny as Steve's hands dug into Danny's back.

With supreme effort, Danny pulled his head back, lips centimeters from Steve's. "Tell me you don't want me," he whispered, "and I'll go."

"You can't go," Steve whispered back, his fingers flexing against Danny's shoulder blades. "The door's locked."

"You know what I mean," Danny said, his voice low and urgent now. "All you have to do is say, 'Danny, I don't want you,' and I can go sit in my own corner and we can ignore each other until morning."

"Danny," Steve whispered, almost cross-eyed from trying to look at Danny's mouth, so close to his own, "I don't want you...to go. Stay."

Danny smiled into another kiss, his hands moving down to Steve's ass. They kissed for a long time, until Danny was out of breath and had to break away, his forehead falling to Steve's shoulder as he breathed. "I would kill for a bed right now," Steve said, his hands conducting their own inspection of Danny's ass. "Why did you have to go and lock us in here?"

"Oh, I don't know," Danny said, raising his head to look Steve in the eye. "Maybe because you're an _idiot_?"

For a moment, Steve looked like he might argue, but instead, he shrugged. "But I'm your idiot?" he said hopefully.

"Yes. And if you remember that, we won't end up doing this again. Now," Danny said, moving away from Steve, "I think we should go find that bed."

"Are you forgetting we're locked in here?"

"No." Danny dug into his pocket and pulled out a key.

"You had that the whole time?"

Danny nodded. "What do you take me for, an idiot? That's _you_ , my friend. I have a _daughter_. What if there had been a fire? I'm not dying in here and leaving her to Step-Stan just because you're a _moron_ with the social skills of a hermit."

Steve was grinning now, a sight that made Danny's heart a little lighter. He didn't kid himself that this was over, not by a long shot, but he'd jumped the first hurdle. He could take the rest without even losing speed. "Let's go, then," Steve said, holding out his hand for the key.

"I'll unlock it, thanks."

"What, you don't trust me not to lock you in here like you did me?"

"No."

Steve laughed. "Under normal circumstances, I wouldn't blame you. But if I locked you in here," Steve said, dropping his voice an octave and leaning close to Danny's ear, "I couldn't fuck you all night long in my bed, now, could I?"

Danny swallowed, licking his suddenly dry lips. "Home. _Now_ ," he said, opening the door as fast as he could.

"That's what I thought."

\---

END

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Special thanks to celli for saying, "Ooo, you should lock Steve in interrogation!" As celli commands, the rest of us do! ;-)

**Author's Note:**

> Want to learn more about me and my writing? Visit my page at <http://www.jamiemeadowswrites.com/>


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